


Sudden, Silent

by Hunter_Caprittarius



Category: Alex Rider (TV 2020), Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Clones, Deaf Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:35:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27811618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hunter_Caprittarius/pseuds/Hunter_Caprittarius
Summary: MI6 brings back the wrong Alex. Naturally, the events that follow occur a little bit differently.An alternate ending to the Alex Rider series in which things are a fair amount worse for Alex but also a little bit better.
Relationships: Alex Rider/Ayisha friendship, Tom Harris/Alex Rider friendship
Comments: 1
Kudos: 45





	Sudden, Silent

**Author's Note:**

> This is just something I dreamt up after watching the show. It's more of an outline than a fully fleshed out story but I hope enjoyable none the less.

Alex, surprisingly unharmed from the blast, is herded into the helicopter. A few minutes later it takes off. They take the clones, the hostages, and Grief’s computer with them. They can come back for everything else later. 

Alex is patched up and sent home. He is silent the entire time. He hardly speaks, he hardly looks at them. Jones tells him to call her if he needs anything. He says nothing. A pit of grief opens up as she watches Alex stand stiff and unmoving in Jack’s embrace. They had broken him. 

*

Miles away, back on a snowy mountain, down in the basement of an ex-school, a pile of rubble stirs. A young man struggles to stand. His ears are ringing horribly and his skin burns unforgivingly. He squints through the haze and realizes that he has been left behind.

This is the real Alex Rider; the boy sitting just feet away from the most precious people in Alex’s life is a fake. 

*

The real Alex Rider stumbles down the mountain. His burning skin is only slightly soothed by the frigid air. By the time he falls onto the road below he is shivering and can hardly bend his fingers. But he keeps walking. He limps along the side of the road until he hears a car coming from behind. Stopping, he allows it to pull up beside him. 

“Kid, are you okay?” the man asks him. 

Alex shakes his head, not understanding. Why is the man whispering? The man’s face becomes concerned and he grabs for Alex’s arm. Panicking, thinking that the man intends to harm him, Alex savagely punches the man. The man is knocked out. 

Coming to his senses a little while later, Alex pushes the man into the back seat and sits behind the steering wheel. He steps on the gas and drives. Much later, the original driver of the car wakes up to find himself alone in his car in a car park in London. A stolen convenience store road map lays abandoned on the seat next to him; it has the word “sorry” written on it in bold letters. He thinks about calling the police but doesn’t know what he would tell them. So he begins the drive back to France. He’ll have his head checked when he gets back home.

Meanwhile, original Alex breaks into his house in search of help. He calls for Jack but no one answers. Searching for her, he finds a note stuck to the fridge. She’s gone out for groceries. Instead of waiting for her to come back, he heads towards school. 

*

Meanwhile, fake Alex has been very busy. He’s been hard at work carefully destroying Alex’s life. He has enough money to go off and live elsewhere after he’s done but first, he wants to completely destroy original Alex’s reputation. He assumes original Alex is dead and thinks that this is the only way to get revenge. He swears and verbally batters Alex’s crush. Then he pesters Alex’s best friend, Tom, about when he was kidnapped. And he keeps it up for the next couple of days, always straddling the line between lashing out due to PTSD and suspiciously out of character behavior. In just a few days everyone Alex cared for is on edge and raw from his subtle psychological torture. And he’s ready to land the finishing blow, after which he can fake his death or just disappear altogether, leaving Alex’s friends confused, devastated, and gloriously hateful. 

He watches Tom and Ayisha squirm in History class. He’ll do it once this class is over, then he’ll go home and take care of Jack.

*

In his dingy underground office, Smithers types away at Dr. Greif’s ancient computer. Humming slightly as he watches files unlock themselves. How he loves old technology. It was all so primitive: embarrassingly easy to crack. Digitized files for Project Gemini throw themselves on screen. Smithers sits up to look more closely at the screen. Moving aside on file he finds a compilation of before and after surgery pictures or all eight clones. Eight. His eyes snag on the eighth pair of pictures. Alex Rider’s face stares back at him.

Shooting up from his desk, Smithers bolts into Blunt’s office. They’d made a clone of Alex Rider and it was unaccounted for. 

*

The real Alex walks into his school, filthy and covered in blood and burns. When the woman at the front desk sees him, she lets out a shocked scream.

“Young man! What happened?” she shouts. But Alex can’t hear her over the ringing in his ears and keeps walking. The woman’s shouts go ignored and she turns to call an ambulance. 

Alex continues up the stairs. Tom, he needs to find Tom, he thinks deliriously. Part of him thinks he is going to die and just wants to see his best friend’s face one last time. He throws open the door to the History classroom. Inside, all eyes turn to Alex, and there comes a symphony of gasps. 

Fake Alex shoots to his feet and the two lock eyes. 

Eyes wide with fear, Alex raises his arm to point at the fake, “That’s not me!”

The fake surges forward and grabs Alex around the throat. Tom, Ayisha, and the rest of the class watch in horror. The history teacher finally comes to his senses when the fake slams Alex into the hallway window, hard. The teacher rushes forward, trying to pull the boys apart with little success. Alex is too weak to effectively fight back and the fake is too strong. Tom and several other students quickly join in but it’s no use. 

The fake just keeps slamming Alex into the window until the glass begins to crack. The ambulance and several sleek black M16 cars pull up just as the glass gives way. Students scream and agents scramble out of their vehicles as they see the fake dangle a nearly unconscious Alex out the third-floor window. 

Ms. Jones brandishes her gun uselessly. At her side, Wolf is tensed like a live wire. 

Several things happen all at once. Someone screams, “Let him go!” A gunshot rings out. Both Alex and the fake tumble out the window. 

*

Wolf’s hearts beat harder than a jackhammer. He’d insisted on coming along when he’d realized their mistake. There hadn’t been time to waste on refusing his request so he was able to force himself along. He knows it was a cheap tactic but he doesn’t care. The kid became his responsibility the moment he sat in that interrogation room chair. It had been his responsibility to get the kid back safe--he’d promised he would. So there is no way he would sit this one out.

But then the kid falls and Wolf just runs. 

Jones is screaming, “Who took that shot? Who took that shot?”

The other children are screaming, “Alex!”

But all Wolf can see is the boy. Alex and the fake hit the ground and a miserable sound comes from Wolf’s throat. He reaches them. Alex has landed on top of the fake who is no longer moving. 

“Cub? Cub, can you hear me?” Wolf whispers desperately. “Come on, kid! Wake up!” He presses his fingers to the boy’s neck and almost collapses. There’s a pulse. The fake broke Alex’s fall. 

“He’s  _ alive _ !” 

*  
  


It is a confusing couple of weeks for Ayisha. First Alex says those horrible, horrible things--she’d thought they were getting closer. She’d thought they were becoming friends maybe even-- It doesn’t matter anymore though. He is dead to her, plain and simple. But then the other Alex shows up and everything falls to pieces.

She is horrified when they fall out the window, she is confused when the government agents question her. And when they tell her that it was Alex’s “psychotic twin” who had almost killed her friend and tried to take his place...she’s still not sure how she feels about it. 

She doesn’t believe it for one--it’s  _ never _ twins--but after weeks of thinking, she is forced to admit that she can’t think of any better explanation. 

An evil secret twin. What was the world coming to?

*

Alex is nervous when he finally can return to school. Tom is glued to his side as they walk through the gates. A month ago he might have teased his friend for his clinginess, but now is grateful. He doesn’t think he would have made it through recovery if not for Tom and Jack. They’d stuck with him through the entire process with astounding patience. They’d been his shoulders to cry on when he’d gotten the bad news. During the blast at Point Blanc, he'd ruptured both eardrums which had then become infected. Because it took him so long to receive treatment he now has permanent hearing loss. In other words, he’s deaf. 

After getting over the initial shock, he, Jack, and Tom had begun taking SEE (signed exact English) classes. Alex was bedridden for the first few weeks of classes due to injuries but he was determined. When he was released from the hospital he was reluctant to go back to school immediately, a time that he and Tom used to keep learning and readjusting. 

But now he is ready to go back.

There was a discussion in the beginning about changing schools but Alex had decided to stay. He needs the familiarity. His teachers have all been informed of the situation and his schedule has been moved around slightly so that he has teachers whose teaching methods were more suited to someone deaf (those with less lecture-focused styles). 

He soon finds himself standing in front of his class. Tom is nudging him encouragingly. Even without his hearing, he can tell that the room is deathly quiet: they're waiting for him.

“Uh, hey guys,” he speaks slowly, still not used to speaking without being able to hear himself, “I was in an accident recently, which some of you may have witnessed, and as a result I…” He pauses, “Uh, lost my hearing, most of it anyway. I can hear a little so if you scream right in my ear I’ll probably hear it. But I wouldn’t recommend that…” He trails off again and shoots Tom a pleading look. 

Tom jumps in helpfully, telling the class about the sign language club they’re starting for people interested in learning. He signs along with what signed words he knows so far to emphasize his point. By the end of the talk, the whole class knows how to introduce themselves in SEE and many of them are obviously interested in the club.

When he sits down he’s swarmed by curious people. Some of them aren’t quite convinced of his deafness, some of them want to know what exactly happened with the “other Alex,” and some of them are just supportive. 

With his deafness and the convenient excuse of memory loss--oh how he wishes the latter were true, what he would give to forget Point Blanc--he is saved from any questions about what happened. It seems that his classmates have already been given an explanation. That will just have to be the only one they get.

Then Ayisha walks up and Alex’s world comes to a shuddering stop. At first, she says nothing and just looks at him with narrowed eyes. But then her gaze softens and she puts a gentle hand on his shoulder. 

They smile at each other and Alex knows that everything’s going to be okay. It’ll take a while, sure, and things will never be like they were before, but in time they’ll be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Let it be known that I hate writing in present tense! Only God knows what possessed me to use it for this. 
> 
> That being said, if there are any glaring mistakes, please point them out. Thank you!


End file.
